With this thought in mind he started to glide away, but he was too late. The door he had banged with his elbow suddenly opened, and a voice demanded in peremptory tones:
“Well, what is it?”
“Great Scott!” gasped Tom. “It’s Simond!” for the countenance of the instructor was thrust from the half-opened portal.
“Well?” went on the rather grim voice, as Tom hesitated. “You knocked.”
“It—it was an accident,” stammered Tom.
“Oh. Then you don’t want me?”
“No, sir.”
“Is anything the matter?”
“No, Mr. Simond.”
“Then what are you doing up on this floor? You’re Parsons, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you room on the floor below?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then what are you doing up here at this hour of the night; knocking at my door?”
“I—er—it was an accident, you see. I was—I was exercising.”
“Exercising?” There was a note of incredulity in the voice.
“Yes, exercising.”
“What for?” Cold sarcasm now took the place of surprise.
“To keep warm.”
“Look here, Parsons!” exclaimed the instructor. “You may think this is a joke, but——”
“No, sir; it’s no joke. I was exercising to keep warm. Arm exercising you know, and my elbow banged your door—I didn’t know I was so close.”
“I see. Well, are you warm now?”
“Oh, yes, sir.” Indeed Tom was in a veritable rosy glow.
“But what was the necessity of getting cold?” went on Mr. Simond, and Tom became aware that others were listening to the talk, for he could hear doors down the hall cautiously opened, and faint snickers of laughter here and there.
Tom was in a quandary. He did not want to tell the real object of coming upstairs as he had, for it would only make trouble for Sid.
And yet if he kept silent he would be put down for having tried to play some prank on his own account. Still if Sid had “gotten away” with whatever he had attempted, and it seemed so, for no sound came from the neighborhood of the room he had entered—in that case Tom could not bring him into the game.
“I guess I’ve got to take my medicine,” thought Tom.
“Well?” demanded Mr. Simond in a cold voice.
“I—I just came up here for a—for a walk,” explained Tom. “I—er—I couldn’t sleep, and——”
“I see. You thought if you came and waked me up that you could sleep; is that it?”
“Oh, not at all, Mr. Simond.” He could be funny when he wanted to, thought shivering Tom. “I—er—I was just going back to bed,” he explained lamely, for that was true enough.
“Very well, then you’d better go now,” concluded Mr. Simond. “And don’t knock on any more doors, or I shall have to look further into the matter. Good-night!”
“Good-night!” gasped Tom, surprised to be let off thus easily. “It was all a mistake, I assure you,” he added, as he glided away.
“Well, don’t repeat the mistake,” was the grim injunction of the instructor, as he closed his door, and Tom vowed that he would not—at least that night.
“I’m a chump!” he told himself as he hurried back to his room. “I might better have let Sid grind out his mushy poetry in peace, and gotten my sleep. Now I may be in for a lecture to-morrow.”
As he entered the room he saw, grouped in the middle of the apartment, his three chums. The sight of Sid, with Phil and Frank, caused Tom to halt.
“Where in thunder have you been?” demanded Phil. “We were just going to get up a searching party for you.”
“That’s right,” came from Sid. “What do you mean by chasing out at this hour?”
“What do you mean, I guess it is!” exclaimed Tom. “I’ve been chasing you, Sid.”
“Chasing me? What rot is that?”
“It’s all right. I woke up when I heard you moving about in here, followed you out to the corridor. You were going to write a poem, you know.”
“Say, am I crazy or is he?” demanded Sid, appealing to the others. “Writing poetry?”
“Yes; weren’t you?” asked Tom, beginning to think he had more of a mystery on his hands than he had at first suspected.
“Worse and more of it,” murmured Frank.
“Do you mean to tell me?” demanded Tom, “that you didn’t sneak out of here a while ago, and go to one of the rooms on the next floor?” and he looked defiantly at Sid.
“I certainly won’t tell, or admit, anything of the kind, because it isn’t so,” replied Sid. “Admitting that I had, will you kindly explain how I could be here when you came in; in that case?”
“That’s so,” admitted Tom, scratching his head in perplexity. “Unless,” he added as an afterthought, “unless you came down the back stairs, when I was chinning with Simond.”
“Chinning with Simond?” demanded Phil. “Do you mean to say you were caught by him?”
“Yes. I banged on his door.”
“Banged on his door?”
“Yes, by accident. You see I was exercising to keep warm.”
The three paused and looked at each other. Clearly they did not understand.
“Look here, Tom,” began Frank in a gentle, soothing voice. “How long have you been this way? Did it come on suddenly, or are you subject to these fits? Have you seen a doctor? Don’t you think we’d better wire your folks? Maybe if you lie down it will wear off. Isn’t it sad, and him so young, too!” and he sighed in mock distress.
“Look here, you chump!” cried Tom indignantly. “You think I’m stalling; don’t you? But I’m not. Here’s how it happened,” and he told of the circumstances, and of his suspicions against Sid.
“And while I was waiting for him—as I thought—to come out of that room upstairs,” he went on, “I got chilly. So I exercised. My elbow banged on Simond’s door, and he opened the oak. Then I had to explain.”
“That’s a rich one!” declared Phil.
“He must have thought you were crazy!” said Frank.
“Exercising at that hour of the night!” exclaimed Sid. “This is too good to keep!” and he laughed outright.
“Not so loud,” cautioned Phil, “or we’ll rouse the place. Anything else, Tom?”
“Isn’t that enough? But say, Sid, are you sure you weren’t out?”
“Of course I am. Ask Phil and Frank. They woke me up in bed.”
“That’s right!” chorused the two.
“I heard a noise,” explained Phil, “and woke up. I was just in time to see you going out of the room, Tom, and——”
“That was when I was after Sid,” Tom explained.
“You mean you thought it was me,” put in Sid.
“Well, have it that way if you like. But if it wasn’t you I chased, who was it?” demanded Tom, after the manner of one propounding a difficult riddle.
“That’s up to you to find out,” spoke the Big Californian. “Are you sure you did see and follow someone, Tom?”
“Of course I am. Do you think I’m crazy?”
“I don’t know,” was Frank’s simple remark.
“There’s something wrong,” went on Sid, “but we can’t get to the bottom of it now. If there was someone in our room we want to know it.”
“Well, there was,” declared Tom, positively. “I know it!”
“Anyhow, I saw you going out,” resumed Phil. “I wondered what was up, but I thought maybe you felt sick, and was going to the medicine cabinet at the end of the corridor. So I went back to bed, and when you didn’t return in ten minutes I roused Sid and Frank.”
“And you found Sid in bed?” demanded Tom.
“Sleeping like a babe—the result of an innocent conscience. Was it not?” asked Sid, with an air of virtue.
“Yes, little one,” came from Phil, with a bow.
“Then we all speculated on what could be the matter with you,” added Frank.
“And we were about to organize a relief expedition, with six months’ supply of rations, and start out,” was Sid’s contribution.
“When in you came prancing as though you had been out for a constitutional,” concluded Phil.
“Telling us that you had been exercising,” commented Sid, sarcastically. “Talk about following me in a suspicious manner, I rather think the dancing slipper is on the other foot, my friend.”
“Well, this gets me!” confessed Tom, blankly.
“Then it’s the second time you’ve been gotten at this night,” declared Frank. “For Simond had you first.”
“Oh, he was decent about it,” Tom said. “I don’t believe anything will come of it. I’m going to get to bed. It’s as cold as Greenland here,” and he made a dive for his room.
“What time is it, anyhow?” asked Sid with a yawn. “Did we take the toothpick out of the alarm clock, I wonder?”
The three of them glanced toward the table where the timepiece was wont to tick. It was the custom to wind and set it before going to bed, the last one to retire being charged with the duty of removing the toothpick, which was used to silence the ticking that annoyed the chums when they were studying.
“Why—why—it’s gone—gone!” gasped Tom, halting on his way to his room.
“That’s right!” chorused the others.
“Tom Parsons, is this your joke?” demanded Sid, sternly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean did you take that clock away for a joke, and then, when you got caught, made up that fake story about chasing me?”
“I—did—not!” exclaimed Tom in such a manner that they could not help believing him.
“Then where is it?” demanded Frank.
There was silence for several seconds, while the white-clad figures regarded one another. Then Tom burst out with:
“I have it!”
“I thought you did,” said Sid significantly.
“No, you gump! I mean I have the solution. It was that chap who was in here, and whom I took for you, Sid. He has our clock. I’ll get it back!”
Tom was about to rush out into the corridor, when Frank laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“Hold on, son,” he began mildly. “There’s been enough running around for one night. It won’t be healthy, for one thing, to do any more, for it is beastly cold. And, for another, there is no use in running our heads into a noose. Simond was decent, you say, Tom, and there’s no sense in putting it on him—rubbing it in, so to speak. We’ll just lay low until morning and then we’ll get our clock. You say you know where it is?”
“Well, I saw the fellow that was in here enter some room on the floor above. I couldn’t pick it out exactly, but I can come pretty near it.”
“That’ll be all right. Who do you think it was?”
“Dutch Housenlager!” declared Tom.
“He doesn’t room up there,” retorted Phil.
“Well, he may have slipped in some room up there to throw me off,” said Tom.
“More likely it was Jerry Jackson,” was Frank’s opinion. “He was poking fun at the clock yesterday.”
“As long as he doesn’t poke anything more than fun at it, all right,” said Phil. “We’re the only ones licensed to use toothpicks and battle-axes on it.”
“Poor old clock,” sighed Sid. “It does get abused, but still it is a faithful friend. Remember the time that duffer—what was his name—took out some of the wheels to make some machine he was crazy over? Remember that?”
“I should say so!” exclaimed Tom. “But this chap wasn’t satisfied with a single wheel—he wanted the whole works. I wonder who it could be?”
“I shouldn’t wonder but what the Snail had a hand in this,” opined Phil. “He’s so fond of roaming about nights.”
“He stays over in the North dormitory now,” declared Frank. “Besides, he wouldn’t get in here at this hour of the morning—at least I think it must be near morning. The doors are locked after hours, you know. No, it was someone from here all right, who took that clock.”
“And the nerve of ’em!” exclaimed Phil.
“And to think Tom took that lad—whoever he was—for me,” put in Sid. “Did he really look like me?”
“He sure did.”
“Maybe it was Bean Perkins,” suggested Frank.
“No, Bean wouldn’t do a trick like that. He couldn’t keep quiet enough,” declared Tom. “He’d want to give a class yell or sing a song in the middle of it, and that would give it away. Say, but I have a scheme though.”
“Out with it, and then let’s get to bed,” yawned Frank.
“We won’t say anything about this,” spoke Tom, “and——”
“Not say anything about it!” cried Sid. “Well, I guess we will! Think we’re going to let our clock disappear, and keep mum over it? I guess not!”
“I didn’t mean that,” explained Tom. “I meant that we’d not come out boldly, and admit that we didn’t know enough to keep our clock from being taken. But to-morrow—at chapel—or whenever we can, we’ll just sneak up back of Dutch, the Jersey twins, or whoever else we suspect, and say ‘clock’ to them. That will make the guilty one start, and we’ll have our man.”
“I see—a sort of detective stunt,” remarked Frank.
“Sort of,” admitted Tom.
“How would it do to make a noise like a tick,” suggested Phil.
“Say, I’m not joking,” exclaimed Tom.
“Neither am I,” asserted Phil. “But let’s be real mysterious about it, and we’ll get the guilty one so much more easily.”
“Oh, don’t be silly!” snapped Tom, who, truth to tell, was getting a bit short-tempered.
“I’m not!”
“Yes, you are!”
“Say, let’s all get back to bed, and fight this out in the morning,” suggested Frank, and they took his advice, though it was but a troubled sleep that any of the four got the rest of that night.
Talking it over by daylight they decided that Tom’s plan might not be so bad. Accordingly, they put it into practice.
“Clock!” suddenly exclaimed Sid, as he slid up behind Dutch Housenlager after chapel. “Tick-tock!”
“Tag. You’re it!” quickly responded Dutch. “What’s the signal?”
“You’re not guilty, I see,” spoke Sid, with a sigh.
“Of course not. What’s the answer?”
“Someone took our clock last night.”
“Oh, that battered chronometer? Say, do you know what I thought?”
“Couldn’t guess it.”
“That you were trying to initiate me into a new secret society, and that you were practicing the password—tick-tock!”
“Nothing doing. Say, Dutch, if you hear of anyone who has it, tip me off, will you?”
“I sure will,” and then, to show how much in earnest he was, Dutch tripped Sid up and deposited him on the grass of the campus.
Nor was Tom, or his other two chums any more successful. Each time they tried the surprise plan on any suspect they received an answer that told they were on the wrong track.
And then, most unexpectedly, the clock came back, as it had done once before. Wallops, the messenger, brought it.
“I found it down in the furnace room,” he explained. “It was on top of one of the boilers.”
“Well, for the love of tripe!” cried Tom. “How in the world did it get there?”
“Our unknown visitor put it there,” declared Frank. “Maybe he thought we were on his track, and he took this method of getting rid of the damaging evidence.”
And they had to let it go at that—at least for the time being, for all their inquiries came to naught.
“Everyone who wants to try for the varsity eight come down to the river this afternoon,” was the notice Captain Simpson posted on the bulletin board the next day. He and the coach had had a conference, and it was decided to try and definitely settle on the crew for the first boat. Then the second choice could be made, and some practice races arranged.
In order to be absolutely fair, Mr. Lighton and Mr. Pierson shifted about those who had been rowing together. I mean Tom and the seven lads with whom he was more closely associated than with any others—Sid, Phil, Bricktop Molloy, Frank, Holly Cross, Dutch, and Kindlings. Jerry was kept as coxswain in the new boat, but Tom, Phil, Holly and Dutch were sent out in the old one, with Bean Perkins for steersman, while four lads who had not been given much practice were imported into the new shell with Frank, Sid, Kindlings and Bricktop Molloy.
“Now, boys, see what you can do!” urged the coach.
It was the first time the new shell had been tried, and it was found fully up to expectations. But it was a little differently made from the old one, and this made the lads a bit awkward in it. However, they rowed fairly well, though in a short trial race the old shell came out ahead.
“We’ll do some more shifting,” decided Mr. Lighton, and he and Mr. Pierson tried different combinations, but still separating the eight lads who had rowed together from the start.
This was kept up for some days, the lads all, meanwhile, being on training. But when a week had passed, and the old and new boats had see-sawed back and forth, first one winning and then the other, Mr. Lighton shook his head in doubt.
“Something is wrong,” he said. “We’ll never be able to pick a varsity crew of either of them. We need a consistent winner.”
“That is right,” agreed Mr. Pierson. “Why not try the same eight you had at first—the four lads whom I coached this Summer, and their four intimate friends? I fancy they would do better together in the new boat.”
“We’ll try it,” assented the coach.
The result was an improvement at once. Even with the awkwardness of the new shell as a handicap, Tom and his seven friends at once opened water between their craft and the other one. And it was not surprising when you consider that they had had considerable practice together, and had played baseball and football through several college seasons.
“I think that’s the varsity crew all right,” declared Mr. Pierson, after watching the test.
“I agree with you—unless something unforeseen occurs,” said Mr. Lighton. “Now we must give some attention to the others in the fours, singles and doubles.”
Practice in these craft had been going steadily on, and in time the crews that were to try to make Randall the champion were picked, subject, of course, to change, a number of substitutes being arranged for.
Word came that the Boxer Hall and Fairview varsity crews in the different shells were doing hard work. They had the advantage of not having to pick new and somewhat green crews. But the spirit of Randall was not affected by this.
“Now, boys!” exclaimed Mr. Lighton one afternoon, when the two eights had gone out for a practice race. “I want you to do your best. Row hard! Try to imagine you’re in a race. Row hard, everybody!”
“There may be a race if those fellows will consent to a brush with us,” said Bricktop to Frank, as he looked down the river and saw the Boxer Hall eight approaching. “I wonder if we can chance it—to see which of our boats would win.”
“I guess so,” assented Frank.
“Silence in the boat!” cried Coxswain Jackson. “Save your breath to row with!”
“Sure he’s getting to be a regular fussing martinet!” declared Bricktop, with a smile.
“Silence in the boat!” commanded Jerry again, and he meant it. Meanwhile the Boxer Hall eight came sweeping on. Would she give Randall an impromptu race?
“What do you think about it, boys?” called Mr. Lighton, from the launch where he and Mr. Pierson were sitting to do the coaching as they glided along. “Do you want to try it?”
“Sure thing!” answered Tom.
“Of course,” assented Pete Backus, from the second eight.
“All right. Just row along then, and don’t make any allusion to a race,” advised Mr. Lighton. “If they want to pick up and come in, let them. Only—don’t let them win!” he added, significantly. “Even if it is only a friendly brush.”
“Let them win! I should say not!” declared Frank. “Be ready to pick me up quick now, fellows, when Jerry gives the word to spurt.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” echoed Bricktop Molloy, from his position behind the stroke oar.
“And say, we don’t want to let those fellows do us, either,” went on Percy Pineford, coxswain of the second eight. “Let’s beat the varsity and Boxer Hall, too.”
“If we can,” remarked Harry Chapin, who was at stroke.
“We can if you’ll pull hard enough and fast enough,” retorted the coxswain.
“Naturally. That’s as easy as pons asinorum to say, but not so easy to do,” commented number six—Billie Burden.
“Say, if you lads want to have any breath left for rowing you’d better stop talking,” commented the coach, and after that there was silence in the varsity as well as in the second eight.
On came Boxer Hall, and not a Randall lad but envied their long, powerful stroke, so evenly done, and with such seeming power back of it. But Boxer Hall had been turning out winning crews for several years, and they had had much practice.
But, with all that, as Mr. Lighton and Mr. Pierson watched the two crews of Randall, out of whose numbers they hoped would come a varsity winner, the head coach remarked:
“Our boys do very well.”
“Very well indeed,” responded the Cornell man. “In fact I like their stroke better than that of Boxer Hall’s. It is likely to last longer, and is not so tiring. Our boys feather better, too.”
“Yes, thanks to your instruction this Summer to Tom Parsons and his three chums. Four good rowers in a boat help to put it in the champion class.”
If it was the intention of Boxer Hall to indulge in a race with our friends the river champions gave no intention of it at this time. They rowed on slowly, being some distance down the stream. The water was wide at this point, and there was room for several craft abreast, even with the long oars in the outriggers which set well out over the gunwales.
“Watch out for a sudden spurt,” advised Frank, in a low voice to Jerry, who nodded in his coxswain’s seat, and got the tiller ropes in a firm grasp.
Boxer Hall was known to be foxy, and if she could creep up on her rival, and, by a sudden increase in the stroke, gain such an advantage that Randall would find it hard to overcome the lead obtained, it would look as though our friends were outclassed. But there were wise boys at Randall, too.
The two Randall eights—the old and the new—had separated to allow Boxer Hall to come between them, if it was her desire to have a friendly brush. At first it seemed as though Boxer would decline, but, at the last moment, the course of the boat was changed, and she shot straight for the open water between the other two craft.
“Now for it!” murmured Jerry in a low voice. “Be ready, fellows!”
Hardly had he spoken when, at a shout from their coxswain, the Boxer rowers suddenly increased their stroke. They had waited until almost on even terms with the other two boats, and evidently hoped to catch our friends unawares.
But they reckoned without their host, for Jerry and his fellow coxswain gave the order to increase, and the sixteen lads responded nobly.
Only for an instant did Boxer Hall hold her advantage. She did shoot ahead, but in a moment her two rivals were on even terms with her, and there they hung for more than a minute.
“Well, it didn’t work—did it?” called Jerry over to Pinky Davenport, who had succeeded Dave Ogden as coxswain of the Boxer eight.
“What didn’t work?” asked Pinky, innocently.
“Oh, you didn’t jump us,” and Jerry laughed, for he saw by the confused look on his rival’s face, as well as on the countenances of the others that their little trick—fair enough in its way—had been discovered.
But if Randall hoped to have matters all her own way, or even remain on even terms, she was much mistaken. For a time the impromptu brush had all the appearances of a real race, and the three boats seemingly tried as hard to win as though the championship of the river depended on it.
Then the second eight began falling behind. The lads made a gallant effort to keep up, but the grind was too much for them.
“It’s up to us now!” declared Jerry, in a low voice. “I’m going to push you fellows!” and he set the stroke at a heart-breaking pace.
His lads stood the “gaff” for a while, and then, noting the distress on the faces of several, Jerry, much against his will, had to lower the rapidity of the stroke.
Boxer Hall had held pace with her rival, giving them stroke for stroke, and now as Pinky saw his opponents in distress, he called for a quick spurt. And to the credit of Boxer Hall, be it said that her men responded in excellent style. They kept up the pace until, in a swirl of water, they had passed the varsity Randall eight, leaving that and the second craft behind. And then, to show that they had their nerve with them, the Boxer Hall rowers did not let up for another minute, sending their craft on at racing speed, even after they had won, and Randall was resting on her oars, completely “tuckered out.”
It was a bad beating for Randall, and the faces of the two coaches as they came up in their launch showed the disappointment they felt.
“Pretty punk; wasn’t it?”
“Regular ice wagon as far as we were concerned.”
“I didn’t think they had that spurt in ’em.”
“And yet we seemed to be rowing pretty well. I guess it takes more than one season to make a winning eight.”
Silence followed these discouraging observations on the part of the four inseparables as they sat in their room the evening following the beating of the first and second shells by the Boxer Hall crew. There had been a meeting of the coaches with the Randall rowers immediately after coming off the water, and several plans had been talked over, involving a shifting of the crews. But in the end it was decided to wait another day or so.
There was no disputing the fact that Randall had expected at least the varsity boat to keep up to, if not beat, their rival. And they had failed. It was a bitter pill to swallow, with the time of the regatta so close at hand.
“It sure was rotten,” said Tom musingly, as he sat staring vacantly at nothing. No one took the trouble to comment on his last remark. They had about exhausted their stock of bitter reflections and observations.
“Something’s got to be done,” went on Tom. Still no one answered him. The fussy little alarm clock ticked on, as though trying to be cheerful in the midst of all that gloom. It was as though it said:
“I wonder what we can do?” Tom mused on.
Sid shifted uneasily in one of the easy chairs. Phil duplicated in the other. Frank turned to a more comfortable position on the old sofa, thereby bringing forth creaks, groans and vibrations of protest from the ancient piece. Tom was trying to get used to an old steamer chair, that had been picked up, with other relics, at an auction held by a retiring senior the previous June, but as the chair had lost one leg, which had been replaced by part of a Turkish rocker, and as the foot-rest had, in some former day, been broken off and put back upside down, Tom’s effort to be at ease was more or less of a failure.
“Something has got to be done!” went on the pitcher. Once more the silence.
“Say, for the love of tripe!” Tom finally burst out. “Have none of you any tongues?”
He sat up so suddenly that the steamer chair, probably rotted by too much salt air on many voyages, collapsed, letting him down with a bump, and raising a cloud of dust from the old rug.
“Good!” cried Phil.
“See if you can do it again,” urged Sid. “Frank had his head turned, and didn’t see it all.”
“Yes, do,” begged the Big Californian, chuckling.
“Humph!” grunted Tom. “I thought I’d make you find your tongues somehow—you bunch of mourners!” and he limped across the room, to lean against the mantle, surveying the wreck of the chair.
“Hurt yourself much?” asked Phil, solicitously.
“A heap you fellows’d care,” was the retort.
“Think you can row?” Sid wanted to know.
“What’s the good of rowing if Boxer walks away from us like that?” demanded Tom, fiercely. “That’s what I’ve been putting up to you fellows all evening, and you never opened your mouths. We’re going to lose, I can see that. What’s the good of trying?”
He was so bitter—it was so unlike Tom’s usually cheery self—that his chums looked at one another in some alarm. As the pitcher went to the bathroom to get some arnica for a slight bruise that had resulted from the chair’s collapse, Sid murmured:
“I guess Boswell has gotten on his nerves.”
“How Boswell?” asked Frank.
“Ruth,” Sid further enlightened him.
“Don’t you believe it,” broke in Phil. “Sis wouldn’t have anything to do with Bossy, while Tom was around.”
“Talking about me?” suspiciously demanded the tall pitcher, entering the room at that moment.
“Oh, nothing serious,” replied Phil, coolly. “We were just wondering what gave you the grouch.”
“Grouch! Wouldn’t anyone have a grouch if he’d practiced in the shell all Summer, and rowed his heart out, only to be beaten by Boxer—and not in a regular race, either? Wouldn’t he?”
“You’re no worse off than the rest of us,” declared Frank, sharply. “We feel it just as badly as you do, Tom.”
“You don’t act so. You’ve been sitting here as mum as oysters!” came the bitter retort. It was the nearest in a long time Tom had come to a breach with his chums.
“What was the good of talking?” asked Sid. “Talking and shooting off a lot of hot air isn’t going to make the varsity eight the head of the river; is it?”
“No, but you might find some way of doing it if you said something, instead of acting like Sphinxes,” snapped Tom.
“I wonder if that chair can be fixed?” broke in Phil, anxious to turn the subject, for matters were being strained to the breaking point. “You sure did come down with an awful crash, Tom. Poor old chair! I’m glad it wasn’t one of our good ones.”
“Good ones!” cried Tom, who had bid in the steamer affair at the auction, much against the wishes of his chums. “Say, this has those other ancient arks beaten a mile,” and stooping over he began trying to solve the twisted puzzle of the arms, legs and foot-rest that seemed to have gotten into an inextricable tangle.
“Oh, I give it up!” he cried, after several unsuccessful efforts. “We’ll let one of the janitors play doctor,” and he laughed.
“That sounds better!” exclaimed Phil.
“It would sound better if we had won to-day,” went on Tom. “Why in the name of the binomial theorem couldn’t we?”
“The answer is easy,” spoke Frank. “They’ve had more practice than we have, they pull better, they have more power; three things that they excel us in. What’s the result? Power, practice and skill added together equal a win.”
“But isn’t there any way we can get those three things?” demanded Tom fretfully.
“Next year, maybe,” assented Phil.
“We’ve got to get ’em this year!” cried Tom, smiting his open palm with his clenched fist. “I won’t admit we can’t get ’em. We’ve got to beat Boxer Hall and Fairview, and we’ve got to get in condition in the next two weeks! Do you fellows hear? We’ve got to double up on our work! We—we——”
“Hear! Hear!” broke in the voice of Bricktop Molloy, as he entered the room at that moment. “What’s all the row about? Tommy, me lad, you’re getting to be a regular orator, so ye are!”
“Come on in, Bricktop, and help us settle the row,” invited Sid.
“Row! I should say so!” cried the red-haired lad. “Who’s been breakin’ up th’ furniture?” and he dropped into his broadest brogue.
“Tom here,” laughed Frank. “He isn’t satisfied with the way the eight rowed to-day.”
“Faith! an’ I guess none of us are,” replied Bricktop. And then the five students fell to discussing the matter from all viewpoints. Presently Holly Cross dropped in, and then Kindlings, so with nearly the whole varsity crew present the room was well filled.
There were opinions pro and con, there were periods of doubt, to be succeeded by others of some hope. And the result of it all was that they decided they had underestimated Boxer Hall’s prowess, and would have to “perk-up” and do more and harder practice in the time that was left.
Communicating this decision to Mr. Lighton the next morning, the lads found that he agreed with them.
“Mr. Pierson and I have talked it over,” he said, “and we have come to the conclusion that to make a shift in the varsity eight now would be fatal. We must stand or fall by what we have. It is too late now. And, mind you, I am not so sure that even if there was more time that I would make a shift. I’m certain, in my own mind, that we have a championship boat. Now it’s up to you lads to confirm my belief in you.”
“And we will!” cried Tom, a sentiment that was echoed by his chums.
Then began at Randall a period of hard and exacting practice, such as had never been known before. The two coaches were fairly overworked, for by this time the first of the football squads was beginning to form. Many of the rowing lads were to play on the gridiron, but they were cautioned only to do light practice until after the regatta, as it would not do to have them overtrained.
The weather was exceptionally warm that September, just right for rowing and a little too close for heavy football work, so in one way Randall had an advantage as regards her crews. It was an advantage, though, shared by her rivals, for both Boxer Hall and Fairview had made up their separate minds to be champion of the river.
Boxer Hall, to be sure, now held this title, having defeated Fairview in the annual water sports in the Spring. But now with the new triple league formed, the title of “champion” was more or less uncertain. Not until this Fall regatta could it be definitely settled.
It had been decided to follow the same rules and customs as obtained between Boxer and Fairview. That is, there were to be a certain number of races—singles, doubles, the four, and the eight-oared shells, and the count was to be as follows:
A total of twenty points was decided on. Winning the eight-oared contest would count ten, the single shells would add two points, the double would count as three and the four would secure five. So that it can easily be seen that the winning of the eight-oared race meant much. Of course if one college should come out ahead in the singles, doubles and four-oared races she would have ten points, and should another win the eight, the score would be tied. But the possibility of this was remote.
In addition there was to be a tub race, which would not count in the championship, but for which several prizes were offered.
But if Randall worked hard, so did her rivals. From the other two colleges came news of cross-country runs for the improvement of the wind of the rowers. The training was reduced to a more scientific basis. It was even rumored that Boxer Hall had imported a well-known physical instructor to assist the coach. And Fairview had summoned a number of old graduates, who had made their marks while at college, to assist in turning out a championship crew or crews.
Though the other races were regarded as important, most of the interest centered in the eight. Little was heard but about this shell, which in a way, perhaps, was unfair to the other rowers, who were practicing faithfully.
Much was heard about the advantage Boxer Hall and Fairview possessed, in that they had been rowing on the river for years. In a measure this was true, and Randall was under somewhat of a handicap in this respect.
Yet, in another way, it was a good thing, for Randall came into the game fresh, without any preconceived notions, and her boys had learned what they knew from the ground up. They were not hampered by college traditions as regards a certain stroke, and Mr. Lighton and Mr. Pierson had developed a logical one—differing somewhat from either Boxer Hall’s or Fairview’s—a combination of the two, modeled after the famous Cornell stroke.
And how Tom and his chums did work, train and practice! Lessons suffered in a way, but the lads were well enough along in college now to know that they could make them up that Winter. And Dr. Churchill, bless his big heart! Dr. Churchill was not too inquiring. On one occasion Prof. Emerson Tines went to the head of the school to complain that he would have to condition a number of his Latin pupils unless their work showed improvement.
“And most of them, my dear Dr. Churchill,” he said, “are of the boating class. A lot of foolishness—a mere waste of time. It was bad enough with baseball and football, but now that rowing has started, it is worse than ever. I wish those old graduates had never made their gift!”
“Tut! Tut! My dear Professor!” remonstrated Dr. Churchill. “Rowing is a form of exercise that develops muscles never brought to the owner’s attention in any other way. I have been reading up on the subject since the eleven has taken to the shell, and I find that the ancient Romans, in their galleys, had rowing down to a perfection rarely attained to-day. It is an ancient and honest sport, and I’m sure I hope our nine will win the regatta,” and then, good old soul, unaware that he had mixed the football and baseball squads most woefully with the crew, turned to his work on his dictionary, which to-be-famous work had progressed as far as the Cha. to Dem. volume, and bade fair to be completed in about fifty years, but Dr. Churchill did not think of that.
The chums were all tired enough this night to sleep, as Sid put it, without being rocked. They had retired early, for there was to be sharp practice the next day.
Lessons had been gone over, with as much attention as it was possible to concentrate on them, considering all that was going on, the alarm clock had been relieved of the “toothpick in its appendix,” as Tom remarked, and it was cheerfully ticking away.
“Queer about that time the clock disappeared, when someone came in our room, and you took him for me; isn’t it, Tom?” asked Sid, as he got his shaving apparatus in shape for quick use the next morning.
“It sure is. We’ve never had another visit from the unknown.”
“And I hope we don’t,” put in Phil.
“Say, did you hear the latest?” asked Frank, as he untied the string of his shoe.
“No, is there going to be another shift in the varsity boat?” asked Phil.
“No, but a lot of the fellows have been missing little things from their rooms; scarf pins and the like. And the funny part of it is that it’s all on the next floor of our dormitory. A regular epidemic, one of the fellows was telling me.”
“Have we a kleptomaniac among us?” demanded Sid.
“Maybe it’s one of the new janitors,” suggested Tom. “There’s one that has a bad eye.”
“Well, as long as they stay off this floor, we’ll be all right,” asserted Sid. “Only we’d better keep our valuables locked up.”
“Anyhow, they can’t take the old chairs and sofa,” remarked Frank with a chuckle. “They’re too heavy.”
It seemed to be Tom’s fate to see the end of the little happening, as it had been his to note the beginning. Late that night he was awakened by a noise in the main apartment. At first he paid no attention to it, and then, as he heard the rustle of papers, he thought of the time he had followed, as he thought, Sid, in the dark, cold corridors.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed to himself, as he sat up without making the bed creak. “He’s at it again! And this time I’m going to find out who it is!”
Softly he crept to the door of his room. He saw the same white-clad figure as before, standing near the window. This time he knew it was not Sid, although the two looked much alike. The only sound was the ticking of the alarm clock.
Then, as Tom watched, the figure approached the table once more. The change in the tone of the ticking of the clock told Tom what had happened.
“He’s got our clock!” thought Tom. “Here is where I catch him red-handed, so to speak.”
The figure glided from the door into the hallway, and Tom followed, pausing but a moment to make sure that his three chums were in their beds. From their opened doors the sounds of three different styles of breathing assured him of this. Then he glided on.
Once more he followed the white-robed figure until it ascended the stairs to the story above, but this time Tom was close behind when the door opened.
“Hold on there!” exclaimed Tom, as the portal was about to close, and reaching forward he laid his hand on the shoulder of a student. “I’ll trouble you for our clock!” said Tom, sternly.
Then he got one of the surprises of his life. With a startled cry the lad he had grabbed turned about, and his widely opened eyes suddenly changed their expression—changed so queerly that Tom knew he had the solution of the mystery.
“A sleep-walker!” he gasped, as he recognized Harry Johnson, one of the Juniors who did not enter much into the sporting life of Randall. “He’s been doing this in his sleep!”
“What—what is it—where—have I? Oh, I’ve been at it again!” gasped the lad as he was aroused. “I beg your pardon, Parsons. Hope I haven’t done anything very bad this time.”
“Nothing but our clock, old man. Are you in the habit of doing this?”
“Not often, though the spell does come on me once in a while. It’s a relic of my childhood days. And so I went to your room and took your clock?”
“Yes. This is the second time. Do you recall the first?”
“Not in the least. And yet I must have done so if you saw me. Probably some night later I went down in the cellar with it and put it on the furnace. Say, I’m mighty sorry.”
“That’s all right. Better lock your door after this.”
“I will. Come in, and tell me what a fool I made of myself.”
Tom, who had on a warm bath robe this time, consented, and in a whisper related the details of the first occurrence. Johnson was contrite, and admitted that it must have been he who had taken the clock, though in his waking hours he recalled nothing of it.
“It must have been the tick that attracted me,” he explained. “Well, I guess I’d better take some treatment. Have a glass of ginger ale?”
“Don’t care if I do, though it’s breaking training.”
As Johnson got a bottle from a closet he uttered an exclamation of surprise.
“Look here!” he called to Tom. “Where did these things come from?” and in the bottom of a little case, where the bottles had been, he pointed to a collection of things.
“By Jove!” cried Tom. “I’ve solved the other mystery! You’ve been taking this stuff in your sleep!”
And so poor Johnson had. There was found all the articles missing from the rooms of various students. Johnson had, in his sleep, entered and taken them, concealing them in a closet, and, in his waking hours, forgetting about them. They were returned the next morning, with suitable apologies, and the matter was quietly dropped, for the students all understood how it could have happened. Johnson consulted a doctor, and was soon cured of his propensity to night wanderings.
“Well, I’m glad I solved the mystery, since I started it,” remarked Tom the next morning.
Day after day passed, and the crews of the eights, as well as the other rowers, fairly lived on the river. The weather was remarkably fine, which was in their favor. Day after day the practice and training were kept up, and the coaches were faithful. A number of the old graduates who had been instrumental in providing the gift, came to Randall, and offered suggestions, some of which, being valuable, were adopted.
And then the natural result followed all this hard work. The time of the eight, especially, began to improve. The boys rowed with more snap and vigor. They could stand the “gaff” better, and when Jerry Jackson, sitting crouched up in his coxswain’s seat, called for a spurt, there were not so many “bellows to mend” in the shape of panting lads, as there had been.
“We’re coming on!” cried Mr. Lighton proudly, at the close of an exciting brush between the first and second boats one day, when the varsity had won. “We’re coming on!”
“If we can only keep it up,” breathed Frank, who, being captain of the eight, as well as stroke, felt his responsibility.
“Oh, we’ll do it, old man,” declared Tom, and he succeeded in infusing some of his spirit into his chums. The faint hearts of the weeks before had become strong.
“But you boys needn’t think you are going to win!” declared Ruth, when the four lads called on the four girls about a week prior to the date set for the regatta. “We have a championship crew in the eight, if nowhere else.”
“Never!” cried Tom. “We’re going to win the eight if we lose everything else; eh, fellows?”
“That’s what!” his chums chorused.
“Anyhow, I’m glad of one thing,” remarked Ruth, in a low voice to Tom, “Phil is so interested in this rowing game that he hasn’t said a word about my lost brooch. The other day I had on the new pin I bought to take its place, and he stared at it without making a remark. But, oh, Tom! I wonder if we’ll ever find it?”
“It doesn’t look so—not now,” replied Tom, mournfully.
“Never mind,” she consoled him. “We did our best.”
“And lost out by a narrow squeak,” thought Tom to himself, recalling the pawn tickets and other clues that had gone for naught. The police had not been able to get a trace of either Mendez or Blasdell, nor had the missing pawnbroker been found.
Finally the great day came. The last practice had been held, the lads, not only of Randall, but at the rival colleges, were “trained to the minute.” The coaches had made their last appeals.
“Well, fellows, to-morrow tells the tale,” said Frank to his seven chums, on the night before regatta-day. They had all met in the gymnasium for a final conference with Mr. Lighton, and had partaken of a light lunch.
“I’m as nervous as a cat,” declared Sid.
“Don’t you dare be!” exclaimed the captain of the eight. “But if you must be—be it now, and steady up for to-morrow. Now off to bed, and everybody sleep soundly.”
And then regatta-day broke—calm, with a bright sun overhead, a hint of Fall coolness in the air that sent a little tingle through the blood—just the day for the races.
“Come on now, fellows, hit her up again! All together and I want every man to sing! Ready now!” and Bean Perkins, the official cheer-leader, the “shouter” of Randall, signalled with his megaphone to his cohorts who were lined up near the boathouse, in and around which the various crews or single-shell men were gathered. “Tear it out now!” commanded Bean, and that glorious old Latin song—“Aut Vincere, Aut Mori!”—“Either We Conquer or We Die!” welled out over the river. It was the song that, time and again, had urged Randall on to victory. Would it once more?
“When are we going to start?” asked Tom, as he walked back and forth on the float, clad in rowing togs, as were a score of others, for a number of substitutes had been provided.
“Don’t get nervous now, old man,” advised Frank. “The shell will be in the water soon, and then we’ll go down to the starting point. They’re going to run off all the other races first, you know. We’re last. We’ve got more than hour yet. Better get on a sweater and a blanket, you might be chilly. You fellows do the same thing,” he commanded, to his crew.
“I wish we were going in first—and get it over with,” said Sid. “This waiting——”
“Say, cut it out!” cried Frank. “If you fellows want to have a case of nerves go off by yourselves somewhere. I want to watch the other races.”
“I think our fellows have a good chance in the four,” said Dan Woodhouse.
“We’ve got a good chance in everything—do you hear that, me boy?” cried Bricktop, in his rich brogue. “We’re going to win everything! Just because you’re in the eight you mustn’t be selfish.”
“I’m not, only——”
“Here comes our four!” interrupted Frank. “A cheer for ’em, boys!” and the echoes vibrated as the rallying cry went forth.
“Come on now, fellows,” cried Bean, dancing about, the colors of Randall on his megaphone fluttering in the wind. “All yell—